Reaping the Whirlwind: Boom Boom Ba Remix
by Lizbeth Marcs
Summary: What does the addition of supernatural-related reaps, a new grim reaper with supernatural experience, a new sort-of boyfriend who may or may not be a pirate, and an apocalypse all have in common? New grim reaper boss George is about to find out.
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** _Reaping the Whirlwind (The Boom Boom Boom Ba Remix)_  
**Author: ** Lizbeth Marcs

**Summary:** What does the addition of supernatural-related reaps to the reaping workload, Roxy's promotion, the addition of a new grim reaper with supernatural experience, a new sort-of boyfriend who may or may not be a pirate, and an approaching apocalypse all have in common? New grim reaper boss George doesn't know, but she's willing to bet that in the middle of it all the universe will kick her ass. Again.

**Fandom:** _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_/_Dead Like Me_ crossover  
**Characters:** _Dead Like Me_ (order of appearance) _—_ George, Mason, Daisy, Roxy, Kiffany, Delores, Penny, OCs. _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ (order of appearance) — Dawn, Buffy, Willow (appearance only), Giles (appearance only), Xander, OCs.  
**Pairing:** George/Xander (nothing explicit)

**Rating:** R for language, cartoon violence and death, sexual situations  
**Warning:** Spoilers for all of _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ (TV show only)_, Dead Like Me,_ and _Dead Like Me: Life After Death._

**Original drabbles:** ___Six Drabbles About Dawn and Death_ by Nothorse (Written for the annual Remix Fic-a-Thon)

* * *

**Reaping the Whirlwind (Boom Boom Ba Remix)**

_My name is George Lass, and I've been dead — or rather_ undead _— for 6 years, 3 weeks, and 2 days. Not that anyone's counting or anything._

_My job: grim reaper. Well, that's mostly my job. These days I also supervise other grim reapers. I've been The Boss for 5 months, 4 days._

_Before anyone gets this idea that being The Boss is all glamour and bling with my feet up on the desk while I snap fingers and order my adoring minions to pick up my dry cleaning or wash my car or buy me shit, I think you need to meet my crew._

_No, really. You_ need _to meet my crew. That's when you'll realize that it's been a long 5 months and 4 days. A very, very_ long _5 months and 4 days._

_Still, being a reaper boss does have its small perks. I get my own place. Rent free._

_Hell, if Rube told me that way back when I first sat my ass down at Der Waffle Haus that a free apartment came with a promotion, I would've…_

_ I dunno…_

_Maybe put a little effort into taking-souls-for-an-unliving._

_Okay, maybe not._

_But I_ might've _put some effort into it if I had known and that's the whole point. I think._

_As for the whole undead issue, it happens to be true that I am one of the undead. Sure, people think "undead" and they think vampire. Zombie. All of that children-of-the- night-of-the-night horseshit. I'm not anything like that, but now I've got to live with the bad rep because guess who's been going nuts and giving all of us undead bad PR?_

_Go on. Guess._

_None of us in the hinterlands we call "the field" ever knew that there were any undead except us reapers. At least we didn't know before 4 months, 3 weeks, and 2 days ago. Needless to say, my job as The Boss crossed over into the double-suck right about the time we all found out that vampires, zombies, and other children of the night or whatever they call themselves are real. And not just real. We're talking Real Assholes._

_Where was I? Oh, yeah. The perks of being The Boss of Other Reapers._

_The free apartment, which I mentioned. All other blessings flow from that very simple fact._

_That means bye-bye roommates. Bye-bye Daisy with her 2-hour iron-woman beauty regimen, which she always starts right when I need to get ready for another day at Happy Time. Bye-bye Mason with his bogarting the couch, and the TV, and all my food. Bye-bye to doing all the housework for 3 people because Daisy has a morbid fear of dishpan hands and Mason breaks out in hives if he sees a vacuum cleaner._

_Bye-bye to all of that, and hello to sweet, sweet solitude. I get to sit on my couch and watch whatever I want on my TV and eat all of my food and not have to worry about Daisy throwing a fit because I put Nair in her shampoo out of revenge for that day she made me a half-hour late for work._

_Best of all, when you have your own place you can set your own schedule. Then your schedule becomes your routine._

_ I like routines. They're comforting._

_A routine means that there aren't any big surprises and no drama from roommates throwing your day into a tailspin before it even starts. No whining, no banging on the bathroom door, and no need to threaten Daisy with another visit from the Nair Fairy if she insists she needs 5 more minutes to remove whatever that is she puts on her face. Best of all: no discovering that Mason ate that leftover Chinese while you were asleep leaving you without that lunch you were so looking forward to because that was some really good moo goo gai pan._

_Now it's all: get up at 6:30 a.m., collect the reap information for the day, scan the reports, head off to the Stacked Pancake, and hand out the assignments. The key part of this is I can sometimes grab the earliest and easiest reap for myself if I haven't been pre-assigned one. I mean, what the fuck, right? I'm The Boss. I deserve a little something for putting up with Daisy, Mason, and to a way lesser extent, Roxy._

_Once the soon-to-be-dead-person walking has been reaped and shown their lights, it's off to another day in corporate-ish America where I get to keep my Happy Time paycheck all to myself, instead using that money for stupid shit. Like rent. _

_After a day in the coal mines, it's home to a blessedly roommate-free apartment where I catch some tube until my eyes bleed. Then it's another night tossing and turning in bed while wishing that I could sleep for more than 3 damn hours. Come 6:30 a.m. it's up and at 'em following the same pattern. Sure, it_ sounds _boring, but it works for me. If I were still alive, I'd call it the circle of life as a comfy blanket. Since I'm not, it's the circle of death as…unh…a comfy blanket._

_The only creepy part is the fact that I get the reap information for the day slid under my door from God knows Whatever before I even get up for my morning bathroom routine._

_But I can live with creepy. Or…unlive with it. Or whatever._

_Fuck it. You know what I mean._

* * *

"Good morning Seattle! Look, up in the sky! It's yellow! It's round! Why, it's the sun! That's right, kids. No need to panic. The long, dark days of rain, rain, and more rain is about to—"

With a groan, George slapped her hand down on her clock radio and shut it off. As per her usual, she also knocked it to the floor.

"Blessed silence," she groaned as she rolled out of bed.

She shuffled past the kitchenette of what her landlord laughingly called a studio apartment — _More like an over-priced one-room efficiency with space carved out for a couple of appliances and a teeny bathroom, but it's not like anyone let me pick out my own apartment_ — and into the bathroom.

On this morning, like every other morning since she moved in, she grumbled about the cold tiles under her feet and made faces at herself in the mirror while she began usual her oral hygiene regimen: gargle, floss, brush.

Then it was back into the main room to pick up whatever El Creepo, as she had come to think of the Whatever that left behind the reap assignments, had slipped under her door. She was already bending down when she realized that the familiar manila interoffice envelope simply wasn't.

"Fuck. Me," George complained as she stood upright.

_Just my luck. The gravelings probably decided to take the day off. On the upside, guaranteed no messy reaps today. On the downside, we've probably got a shitload of paperwork just waiting for us and only 24 hours to do it._

"I can't handle this right now," George complained. "I don't even know what to do."

She glowered at the door as if it had the definitive answer.

"Well, **someone** better be dropping off some instructions, or at least a treasure map where I can find everything I need or **someone's** records are going to be fucked," she informed the door.

The door remained door-like and provided no answers at all.

George turned on her heel and headed back to the bathroom and a nice, long shower. She got no more than three paces when she heard the sound of something at the door. She spun around and saw the familiar manila interoffice envelope waiting for her in its customary place. Today the usual was paired with a dark red envelope of the same size.

"Guess someone's running late today," George grumbled as she stomped over to the door. "And, oh, look! Something extra. This **better** not mean more work for me."

As she bent down to pick up the envelopes, she noticed the hint of a shadow through crack under the door. She froze and swallowed. El Creepo appeared to be waiting for something. George took a deep breath as she reached for the envelopes and called out, "In a sec."

_It wasn't so much that I wanted to get the envelopes out of the way. Okay, actually it was_ _that. I was a little afraid of what I'd find on the other side of that door. It's not that I wasn't planning on opening it, because I most definitely was. However, this struck me as a need-to-leave-fast-just-in-case situation. Leaving loose envelopes underfoot when I might have to back up at a run while slamming the door shut was probably a really bad idea._

_I think I'm starting to get why Rube was a don't-ask-don't-tell kinda guy, because that shadow seemed like a Real Shadow. It was a shadow with extra shadow on the side. Or more like shadow-plus._

George straightened up and, keeping one nervous eye on the door to make sure that El Creepo didn't go anywhere, opened up the dark red envelope. She peered inside and saw two packages held together with a paperclip. One had several pages with what appeared to be a picture of a young woman attached. The other was a single sheet of paper with a picture of…

Why would there be a picture of…

George pulled the single sheet with its attached picture out of the envelope and stared at it, letting all the other paperwork fall to the floor.

Stamped crosswise across the paper was a red rubber-stamped "APPROVED" in all capital letters.

"No! Wait! No!" George hollered.

As George dove for the door, El Creepo's shadow took a powder.

George burst into the hallway just in time to catch something dark moving really fast around a corner.

"Get back here you son of a bitch! You get back here right now!" George hollered as she chased after the Whatever. "You can't do this to me! You can't!"

George skid around the corner and saw the elevator door was already closing on that hint of shadow she couldn't quite see. She put in an extra burst of speed in the vain hope that she could stop it.

"No you don't! No you don't!" George yelled as she slammed into the elevator door. She tried pulling it open with her hands even as the dial above her head showed that the elevator was already descending out of her reach. She began to pound on it. "Come back and say this to my face, you miserable bastard!"

_I am George, hear me roar. Well, that sure told It, didn't it? What am I going to_ do_?_

George stepped back and spit, "Mother**fucker**."

She spun around, ready to stomp back to her apartment only to find that she had drawn a crowd. Just about every door on her floor was open and framed an irate person glaring right at her.

She held up her single sheet of paper with photo attached and explained in a weak voice, "Unh…I got a jury summons."

* * *

_I had always wondered what Rube knew and when he knew it about me and the day I died. I even asked him once. Okay, more like yelled the questions at him while pointing out that I was only 18 when I died and that it wasn't fair._

_Which it wasn't and it still isn't, but then again death is never fair. It just is. Reapers have two choices: accept it and move on, or don't accept it and get disappeared._

_Now I know what Rube knew and when he knew it. I wish I didn't, but now I know._

_And I still don't think it's fair._

_You know, I never did find out the name of the guy I replaced. All I got out of Rube was that he was a pain in the ass, but then again Rube thought everyone_ _was a pain in his ass. He took pains in his ass personally even when it wasn't personal._

_The thing is, no one ever talked about the guy who reaped me, got his lights, and left me holding the bag. No one. Not Rube, pain-in-the-ass comment aside. Not Roxy. Not Mason. And not Betty. It was like: here was this guy we worked with for years, maybe even decades. Then one day he's gone and it's like he was never there at all._

_Come to think of it, we don't even talk about Betty and that's despite the fact she took the fast exit out of being a reaper instead of waiting her turn and probably got obliterated in the process._

_Is this who we are? Is this_ really _who we are? Are we so used to the idea that one day you're there and the next day you're not that we even apply it to one of us?_

_If I have to go by everything that's never been said, I think the answer is "yes"._

* * *

The anger over the unfairness of the situation was still busily gnawing away in the pit of George's stomach when she pushed open the door of the Pancake Stack. However, all of that anger was now drowning in a sense of the loss that was coming.

Her merry band of reapers — a band that George would somewhat grudgingly admit were her fucked-up undead family — were already in full bicker.

Roxy was cackling over her coffee as George approached their usual booth. She stopped just short of finishing the trek and watched them.

_I couldn't believe this was going to change. I didn't_ want _it to change. I liked things just the way they were._

"It's not bloody funny," Mason grumped. "And I want to file a police report."

"Let me get this straight," Roxy was seconds away from howling with laughter and pounding on the table, "you want to file a police report because some lowlife grabbed your backpack and took your drugs? Seriously?"

The few working synapses in Mason's brain finally seemed to get just how fucked-up that idea really was. Typical Mason, though, he wasn't about to let it drop. "He took my wallet, too. And I'll have you know that those drugs were legal prescription medications."

"Yeah, none of which are in your name," Roxy pointed out. "So, what the fuck do you **think** is going to happen? I file a report, they catch the creep, and they find all these bottles on him. How long do you think it'll take for them to find out all those names belong to dead people?"

"We could leave out the part about the drugs, right?" Mason asked.

"What I don't understand," Daisy interrupted as she checked her make-up in mirror compact, "is why you didn't chase down the mugger and get back your things."

"Daisy, I explained this," Mason said with the air of a man who had repeated this point several times, "he had a gun."

"So?" Roxy archly asked. "You're already dead. It isn't like he can kill your scrawny ass again."

"Well put, Roxy," Daisy primly said as she snapped the compact mirror shut.

"Getting shot bloody well **hurts**," Mason said with a wounded air.

_This is the part where I've got to interrupt._

_The beauty-obsessed blonde with the good skin is Daisy. According to her, she not only knew every leading man in Hollywood back in the stone ages, she blew all of them, too. What? I'm only quoting Daisy. Anyway, Daisy was an actress. Is an actress. Kind of. She's still hoping to get discovered by a famous producer and make it big in Hollywood, despite the fact she's dead and reaping in Seattle. Still, if you squint you'll find that Daisy does have a heart buried in there somewhere. Blink and you'll miss it._

_The grubby-looking British guy who looks like he never quite got out of the drug haze of the '60s is Mason. What to say about Mason, except: Mason, Mason, Mason._

_The black woman in the police uniform is Roxy. She will Kick. Your. Ass._

"Well, I remember this one date I had with Tyrone Power," Daisy began.

"Oh, God," Mason groaned.

"Yup, it's going to be one of those fucking days. I can just feel it," Roxy grumbled as she sipped from her coffee cup.

_Roxy, you have_ no _idea._

"And this blackguard jumped out of the shadows with a gun and insisted that I hand over all my jewelry," Daisy continued. "Well, of course I just **couldn't** since Tyrone had gotten them on loan from Tiffany's. He was letting me wear them for this date and—"

"Roxy? Please shoot me," Mason begged.

"I'm thinking I should shoot Daisy instead," Roxy said.

"Are you going to let me finish this story or not?" Daisy huffed.

"I vote not," George said as she finally slid into the booth's sole empty slot next to Roxy.

"Weeeellll, look who decided to finally grace us with her presence," Roxy sarcastically commented.

"Look at that," Mason flashed the very new, very expensive Omega watch on his wrist, "our little Georgie is near a half-hour late. And I say, 'Good for her.' She's been getting a little too Miss Goody Two-Shoes lately. High time she bucked the trend and got back to her rebel girl roots."

George blinked at him. "I know that's not your watch."

"My reap from last night," Mason proudly answered.

"Speaking of filing a police report for thievery," Roxy grumbled.

"What? He said I could have it." Mason brought down his wrist. "Not like he's going to need it. Not where he's gone."

"That's just so tacky," Daisy delicately shuddered.

"Right. Because you've never enhanced your income by letting your fingers do a little walking where they shouldn't," Mason said.

"I was talking about the watch," Daisy sniffed.

"Guys!" George snapped. "Enough!"

Three pairs of eyes turned on George.

After a beat of silence, Daisy turned on her megawatt smile and said, "Well, aren't we a little ball of sunshine today."

Before George was able to say something cutting, a shadow fell across their table.

"Are you ready to order?"

George's eyes snapped up. "Oh, hey Kiffany. I'd like a round of Banana Bonanzas. My treat."

"Wrong restaurant," Kiffany reminded her as she tapped her pen against her pad.

"Oh. Yeah. Right." George winced. "Make that a round of Best Banana Busters. Unh, still my treat."

The synapses in Mason's brain were really on fire today, because it finally registered that George was actually paying for breakfast. "Really?"

"Yes, really," George wearily answered.

Kiffany finished her scribbling. "Anything else?"

"Yeah, coffee for me and put whatever they're having on my bill," George said.

Three pairs of eyes, this time widened in shock, once more stared at George.

"Got it," Kiffany nodded as she finished scribbling. Before she turned away to deliver the order, she paused and touched George on the shoulder. "Sometimes I miss the old Waffle Haus, too."

"Yeah," George glumly agreed.

The group waited until Kiffany moved off.

"I knew it. I knew it was going to be one of those fucked-up days," Roxy said.

"Why do you say that?" George tried to sound defensive, but instead sounded sulky. Sulky was so not what she should be going for right now.

"Well, Georgia, you have to admit that **you** buying **us** breakfast is unprecedented," Daisy pointed out.

"That's not true. I've bought you breakfast," George argued.

"Yeah, right before you told us you were now our boss," Roxy said as she sipped from her coffee.

"So you'll have to excuse us if we think that maybe you've got a little bad news tucked away in your Day Planner," Mason added. "What is it today? A bus full of little old nuns? A tragic accident involving an interstate pile-up caused by a herd of rabid goats?"

"Mason," George sighed.

Roxy snapped her fingers. "It's another fucking vampire attack on a nightclub, isn't it? God, I hate those things."

"Better that than the zombie-related reap I had last week." Daisy wrinkled her nose. "I'm still seeing that thing bite into my guy's brain every time I close my eyes."

"You know, I was trying to be optimistic," Mason complained. "Now you've completely put me off breakfast."

"You have to admit that adding supernatural-related reaps to our workload is just ridiculous," Daisy griped.

"I'm telling you, Someone upstairs fucked up big time," Roxy agreed. "Who wants to bet that They screwed up on staffing for the supernatural deaths? Figures that we're the ones who are paying for that. And you can bet They're not going to add more help now that They've got us doing it for free."

"Roxy, we don't get paid, remember?" George said. "We're doing this for free anyway."

"Yeah, well, that's bureaucracy for you, isn't it?" Mason asked without acknowledging George's point. "This is why we need a union."

"Look at you being all Norma Rae and shit," Roxy said.

"Guys, it's nothing like that," Geroge interrupted. "Really. No vampires. No zombies. No freaky creatures from Planet X. No monsters. And especially no giant squids with tentacles that suck off your face."

Daisy reached across the table and placed her hands over George's. "It's okay, Georgia. I completely understand why you're still traumatized by that. But I think you really need to see someone about your PTSD."

"Daisy," George said through clenched teeth as she yanked her hands off the table, "I'm just saying that this isn't about a reap."

This resulted in a few moments of blessed silence as the other three reapers considered this.

"At least, it sort of isn't about a reap," George amended in a mutter.

The other three reapers exchanged worried glances.

"Georgia, you're not making a lot of sense," Daisy said.

Unsure of what to say or how to say it, George silently opened her Day Planner and pulled out a single folded sheet of paper. She held it out to Roxy.

Roxy eyed the paper like it was a bomb that would go off the second she touched it. "Oh, no. I'm not taking that unless I know what it's about."

"It isn't going to bite. Besides, neither one of us really has a choice, do we?" George mumbled.

Roxy gingerly took the paper and unfolded it.

As Roxy's eyes scanned the page with the red rubber-stamped APPROVED, Mason and Daisy fidgeted.

_Roxy was probably just as upset as I was, and that's why it was taking her so long to say anything. There's also probably a little shock involved, but she was definitely upset. I could tell._

"Rox?" Mason tentatively asked. "What is it?"

Roxy threw up her hands and let out of whoop of triumph.

_Okay, maybe she wasn't that upset._

"Read it and weep, motherfucker," Roxy laughed as she waved the page in front of Mason. "This girl is moving on up, up, up and **out of here**."

"The hell you say!" Mason exclaimed as he snatched the paper out of Roxy's hand.

"Let me see!" Daisy demanded as she snatched the paper from Mason's hand before he had a chance to see what was on it.

Roxy, meanwhile, was doing some kind of break-dancing move with her upper body.

"I don't believe this." Daisy slammed the page down on the table top.

Mason snatched the paper and finally got a chance to read it.

"Ah-hah! Believe it, girlfriend. Read. It. And. Weep." Roxy began doing a one-person wave.

Daisy leaned forward and pointed a threatening finger at the celebrating Roxy. "I've been dead far longer than you, Roxanne Harvey. Decades longer in fact. If anyone should be getting their lights, it should be **me**."

"Oh, this is bullshit," Mason said as he waved the paper at George. "This is completely bullshit, this is. Roxy's been dead for, what? She hasn't been dead for even 30 years."

"Twenty-seven years, in fact," Roxy said. She began bouncing in her seat and singing under her breath, "Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah…"

George put her head in her hands.

"Well, what about me?" Daisy piteously asked.

"What about you?" Roxy cheerfully asked.

"I've been dead for 71 years. Seven. One," Daisy said. "I've earned those lights. I **deserve** those lights."

"That's right. I shuffled off the mortal coil 43 years ago, and I've yet to even get a **sniff** of freedom," Mason said. "Should be me or Daisy gettin' our lights. Not some Roxy-come-lately."

"Too bad, so sad," Roxy sing-songed.

"Are we finished?" George snapped.

"Alright settle down, settle down," Roxy said with a grin. "Let the boss lady have her say."

George resisted the urge to tell Roxy to go fuck herself.

"I want an explanation for this bullshit, that's what I want," Mason complained.

"As would I," Daisy daintily agreed. "Georgia?"

"Well, I…unh…I don't actually have one," George mumbled.

"Bullshit," Mason declared. "You know something, Georgie. So spit it out."

"I don't," George protested. "I don't know why Roxy and not you two. It's not like they asked **me** or anything. All I know is that Roxy's getting promoted and some information about the new reaper and that's it."

"Whoa! This is where I have to get off," Roxy said.

"What? **Why**?" George asked. "I mean, what the fuck do you care? You're up, up, up and out of here, remember?"

"The less I know about my replacement, the better," Roxy said. "I don't want to spend my last day feeling all guilty and shit."

_In a fucked-up way, Roxy kind of had a point_.

"Notice she's not feeling guilty about leaving us behind," Mason said as he nudged Daisy.

"Hell **no** I'm not," Roxy readily admitted.

"Four Best Banana Busters," Kiffany announced as she materialized at their table with four plates.

"I gotta take mine to go," Roxy said. "I'm late for work."

Kiffany swiped up one of the plates. "You got it. Meet you by the register."

As Kiffany sailed away to the kitchen to pack up Roxy's breakfast, Roxy held out her hand.

"What?" George demanded.

"My post-it. Remember? Can't reap without it," Roxy reminded her.

"Oh. Yeah. Right." George pulled Roxy's post-it from her Day Planner and handed it to her.

Roxy scanned the yellow square and made a face. "Two-thirty-five in the morning? You're fucking with me, right?"

"That's the time," George said.

"Shit. So much for sneaking out of work early," Roxy said as she made a shooing motion with her hand to indicate that George needed to get her ass out of the way.

"You're going to work?" Mason asked. "What are you? High?"

"Me? No. I'm pretty sure you are, though," Roxy said as she hauled herself out of the booth. "I've got responsibilities. I can't just not show up for my shift."

"And yet, that's exactly what you'll be doing tomorrow," George said.

"Smart ass," Roxy shot back as she headed off to meet Kiffany.

As George slid back into the booth, Daisy pounced.

"Well?" she demanded.

"Well what?" George asked.

"Our new reaper," Mason said. "C'mon, give us the dirt."

"It'd be nice to have someone with breeding join us," Daisy sighed. "We need more gentility in our ranks."

"If it's a man, I hope he's a real bloke. And if it's a bird, I hope she's a stunner," Mason said as he dug into his breakfast.

_And just like that, Mason and Daisy moved on. It was like watching someone flip a switch. I didn't get it. There should be a little period of mourning, or at least a moment of silence. There should be something to mark the occasion; something more than me buying breakfast for everyone._

"First off, it's a she. As for whether or not she's hot, I can't judge one of those things," George said.

Daisy pouted. Mason looked hopeful.

"As for gentility, she has a PhD in linguistics. I guess that qualifies," George added.

Mason remained stubbornly hopeful. "Maybe she's got a sexy library thing going for her."

"You have to do better than that, Georgia, because honestly this tells me nothing," Daisy said.

_I knew it was kind of mean of me, but I really wanted to make them sorry. Sorry about Roxy leaving. Sorry about getting a new reaper with no warning. Sorry about_ everything. _So I probably shouldn't have broken the news to them like I did, but at this point I just didn't care._

"Also, she's an expert in the supernatural," George added in an off-handed manner.

Daisy's eyes widened as her mouth dropped open. Mason's fork froze halfway between the plate and his mouth as he stared at George in horror.

"That's right. It looks like we're not going to stop reaping supernatural deaths any time soon." George fake-smiled at them as she lifted her coffee cup in a salute. "Cheers!"

* * *

_The hardest part about death is moving on, and we're not just talking about the living moving on either. As it turns out, it's the hardest part about life after death, too._

_Roxy and me had our problems, sure. Roxy was always a hardass reaper, and me not so much. When Rube was around, she was the second in command. She made sure that Mason, Roxy, and, yeah, even me, toed the line and did our reaps the right way and according to the rules._

_The problem was that after Rube disappeared the day Der Waffle Haus burned to the ground, Roxy temporarily_ stopped _following the rules. It was like she had forgotten everything Rube was about when that asshole Cameron took over and insisted that the only rule was that there were no rules. God knows what got into Roxy. Maybe she got sick of being the responsible one. Maybe she got sick of being good. Maybe she just needed someone to give her permission to be bad._

_Turned out that it was exactly the wrong time for her to stop following the rules._

_While Daisy, Mason, and even Roxy started running around doing whatever the hell they wanted,_ I _suddenly became a stickler for the rules and insisted on following them to a T._

_Turned out that it was exactly the wrong time for me to start following the rules._

_Sometimes I wonder if Cameron was a test, because when it was all over I got showered in post-it notes and Roxy got shut out of being the new Rube._

_Yet, for all that, Roxy's getting her lights and I'm still here. I could see where Mason and Daisy were coming from. If you go by strict seniority, Daisy should be the first to go. If you go by who's been a good reaper versus a bad reaper…_

_Okay, maybe I still wouldn't be top of the list, but I bet I'd outrank Daisy and Mason at least._

_But if becoming The Boss wasn't a reward then what was it? A punishment?_


	2. Chapter 2

Roxy popped her gum and pointedly looked at her watch. "Where the fuck is my reap?"

"For the millionth time, it's not 2:35 yet," George said.

Roxy looked over her shoulder.

"Mason and Daisy said they'd be here to say good-bye," George said.

Roxy made a face as she chewed her gum. f"Yeah, well, Mason and Daisy aren't what you'd call reliable."

George felt she needed to muster some kind of defense for the others. "They get their reaps done without any fuck-ups."

"Daisy is usually okay, but Mason's had some beauts in his time," Roxy said.

"We all have," George said defensively.

"Yeah," Roxy quietly agreed.

There was a moment of silence as George and Roxy surveyed the street for any sign of D. Summers.

Roxy began to chuckle. "Hey, remember right after you told us that you'd been promoted and had the post-its to prove it?"

"You pushed me in front of that speeding truck, you bitch," George said.

"Squashed you flat like a pancake, right there in the middle of the street," Roxy cackled.

Even though it wasn't at all funny at the time, George started to laugh. "I ended up in a refrigerated drawer at the morgue. It took me **hours** to escape."

"And you were so **mad**," Roxy shook her head with a grin.

"I got back at you, though," George said as she nudged Roxy's shoulder with hers.

"My car still don't run right and it smells funny every time I turn on the defroster," Roxy said. "What the fuck did you do to it?"

George grinned at her and primly responded, "Trade secret."

"Yeah, well, guess it don't matter nohow. It's someone else's problem," Roxy said.

"Yeah," George quietly agreed.

The moments were ticking away, and still no sign of D. Summers.

No sign of gravelings yet, either.

_Not-so-deep down inside I kind of hoped that D. Summers would miss her appointment, or that the gravelings wouldn't bother to show. I kind of hoped that I screwed up and wrote 2:35 a.m. on the post-it when really Roxy was supposed to reap her at 2:35 p.m. I hoped I wrote the wrong address and that right now D. Summers was really on the other side of town living her life without a care in the world._

_I even kind of hoped that Roxy and me would stay forever just like this, shooting the shit in some alleyway at ass o'clock in the morning with 2:35 a.m. never getting any closer._

_I hoped for a lot of things, even though I knew I wouldn't get any of it._

"Mind if I give you some advice?" Roxy asked.

"Since when do you ask?" George responded as her eyes scanned the street.

"True that," Roxy agreed.

George switched her focus to Roxy. She was surprised to see that the other reaper actually looked nervous, sad, and unsure of herself all at the same time. It was almost like looking at an anti-Roxy.

"You're not Rube," Roxy said once she was sure she had George's undivided attention.

That statement really irritated George. "I know that."

"I know you know that in here," Roxy tapped George on the temple, "but you keep trying to act like Rube and you're not Rube."

"I don't act like Rube," George huffed.

"Hey, I'm not criticizing or anything," Roxy said with a shrug. "Rube's the only boss you've ever known. Hell, he's the only boss I've ever known, besides you. But Rube had his own thing, y'know? His own way of kicking your ass into shape and making you fly right."

"I haven't kicked anyone's ass," George grumbled.

"'Cause you didn't have to"

George frowned at Roxy. "So all that whining, bitching, and moaning I get from the three of you is, what? Because you fucking love me?"

"We all whined and bitched at Rube when he was in charge," Roxy pointed out. "Hell, there were entire months where you were the worst one for that, and you know it. That's just the way we roll."

"Fine. Point taken."

"Look, what I'm trying to say is, yeah, none of us were thrilled that you got to be The Boss, but that's because we all wanted the job," Roxy said.

George snorted. "**Mason** wanted to be in charge."

"Sure, Mason. He gives good bullshit about it, but if those post-its rained down on his head do you really think he'd say no? Sheeya. Right. Pull my other one," Roxy said. "Fact is, we all wanted it, and you got it. So you gotta expect a little tension 'cause of that."

"Great. So when's it supposed to stop," George said.

"Don't know if you noticed, but it already has," Roxy answered with a shrug.

"Oh don't give me that," George said. "Mason's constantly busting my ass over being Miss Goody Two-Shoes. Daisy's always trying to negotiate higher class reaps. And you pushed me in front of a truck."

"I didn't do it a second time, did I?"

George rolled her eyes.

"Fact is we know you. **We** know **you**. We also know that you'll have our backs and that you actually give a shit," Roxy said. "So maybe we give you ulcers, but all four of us used to make Rube constipated. That's just the way it is."

George smiled a crooked smile. "Because that's just the way we roll."

"That's right." Roxy nodded. "But this new person? This new reaper? That person don't know you from dogshit. They're not going to trust you. They're not going to like you. And they're going to make your life miserable until they get it through their heads that you've got their backs and that you actually give a shit about them."

"Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence, Roxy," George grumbled.

"Remember what you were like?" Roxy archly asked.

"Ouch."

"Hey, you think it was any different for me?" Roxy asked. "I was a little terror those first few months. I did my share of purposeful fuck-ups, let me tell you."

"You," George said with disbelief.

"You think my going off the rails when Cameron was in charge came from nowhere?" Roxy shook her head. "I sucked it up with Rube because Rube kicked my ass and made me fly right. Having Cameron come along and say that I was right all along was like handing me a license to steal."

"I always kind of wondered about that," George said.

"Yeah, well. Now you know. All water under the bridge now," Roxy said.

"Between the two of us, I think you got the better end of the deal," George admitted.

"Yeah, maybe. We'll see." Roxy seemed to suddenly realize what she almost admitted to. "Don't you go telling those two fuck-ups I just said that."

George mimed zippering her smiling mouth shut.

"You better." Roxy shook a finger at her. "What I'm trying to tell you is this: eventually you're going to have to kick the new reaper's ass and make them fly right. But do it in your own way. Don't go trying to be like Rube about it, because it won't work."

_That…was actually good advice._

"I'll…keep that in mind," George said.

"Unh-hunh. See that you do," Roxy said as her eyes scanned the street. "Where the fuck is my reap? Don't got all night here."

There was the sound of running feet behind them.

"Showtime," Roxy said.

George checked her watch. "Still a few minutes yet."

"Good, we didn't miss the going away party," Mason huffed and puffed as he skidded to a stop behind them.

"Just barely," Daisy said as she followed at a far more sedate pace. "Mason decided that he knew a shortcut."

"Got us here in time, didn't it?" Mason asked.

George and Roxy exchanged glances and both rolled their eyes. They knew all about Mason's shortcuts.

"We could've gotten here 10 minutes ago if you took a right on Stensen Road like I told you," Daisy said.

"Will you two shut the fuck up?" Roxy asked. "You're going to scare away my reap."

Mason waved a hand at her. "We bust our arses to get here and see you off, and this is the thanks we get."

"You'll get your thanks with my fist if you don't shut the fuck up already," Roxy threatened.

As the other three reapers settled to bickering amongst themselves, George saw a puff of smoke and the appearance of a graveling.

"Guys, the graveling's here," George said.

"About fucking time," Roxy said as Mason and Daisy crowded them from behind. "Where?"

George pointed to the graveling as it gamboled up the front stoop.

"I am **not** going to miss seeing those guys," Roxy said under her breath.

The graveling squatted and pissed right in front the door.

George made a face. "Ugh."

"That's just nasty," Roxy said.

"You'll get no argument from me," Daisy agreed.

Mason waved a hand in front of his face as if he could smell the urine. "Looks like we're going for the fall down the stairs and break your neck routine. I swear those little buggers have no bleeding imagination at all."

"Same shit, different reap," Roxy agreed.

"Not to mention a sick sense of humor," George said.

"No one ever said they were subtle," Daisy said.

"They don't gotta be. They just gotta get the job done," Roxy said as they all watched the graveling scamper off and disappear in a puff of smoke.

The streetscape was suddenly awash in headlights.

George checked her watch. "I think this is it."

"Yeah." Roxy looked unsure of herself.

"Okay guys, let's keep to the shadows and let Roxy have her moment," George said as she pressed herself flat against the wall of the alley.

"Right behind you," Daisy said as she and Mason followed suit.

_As we crouched in the shadows and watched Roxy brush down her police uniform, I realized that this was the very last picture I'd have of her. Actually the very last picture I'd have of her was her doing her reap, but this was the last picture I'd have of her that involved just the four of us._

The car rolled to a stop. The engine cut. The headlights went dark.

Roxy took her first step forward.

"Roxy," George called out in a strangled whisper.

Roxy paused and looked at her.

_I wanted to tell her good luck. I wanted to tell her I'd miss her. I wanted to tell her thank you._

_I wanted to say a lot things._

_I just couldn't get them to leave my chest._

Roxy gave them all a half-smile. "If I see Rube, I'll tell him you said hello."

Then she stepped out onto the sidewalk.

"Geez! You scared me!" came an unfamiliar voice.

"Sorry about that, ma'am," Roxy responded.

George, Mason, and Daisy leaned forward as far as they dared so they could watch the scene.

Roxy made a show of looking at the car's license plate. "Are you D. Summers?"

"I'm D. Summers. I mean Dawn. Dawn Summers." The woman shut her car door. She was tall with long, dark hair. She was dressed in what looked like to be comfortable clothes, from the tasteful sweater to the well-worn jeans, right on down to her sensible boots.

"Not very fashionable, is she?" Daisy commented.

"Nice hair, though," Mason said.

"Guys," George warned.

"Well ma'am, I'm afraid we've had a complaint," Roxy said.

They couldn't see Dawn's expression, but they could definitely hear her puzzlement. "Complaint? About what?"

"That you've been parking illegally," Roxy said.

"Let me guess. The name of the person making the complaint wouldn't be Mark Sheffield, would it?" Dawn sounded irritated.

"I can't share that information, ma'am," Roxy responded. "All I can do is tell you that a complaint's been filed."

"Yeah, well, let's just say that I have one particular neighbor who seems to think that the parking spot in front of this building belongs to him," Dawn explained with irritation. "He doesn't seem to understand the whole public street equals you can park anywhere concept."

"So, you usually park here," Roxy said.

"Here, or one spot up. Yeah," Dawn agreed.

"Sounds like you've got a bad neighbor problem."

"More like a pain-in-my-butt problem." Irritation showed strong and clear in Dawn's voice.

Roxy held up her hands. "Unfortunately, I can't get involved in neighborhood disputes."

"I know, but I can dream right?" Dawn asked. "Well, good night officer."

"Good night," Roxy automatically responded.

"I can't see. Did she reap her yet?" Daisy asked.

"I'm not sure," Mason answered. "If she did, I missed it."

"No. No she didn't," George whispered.

As Dawn headed for graveling-prepared steps, Roxy called out, "Ma'am?"

Dawn paused, tensed, and spun around. "Yes, officer?"

"I know that sometimes these neighborhood disputes can get ugly," Roxy said as she dug around in her breast pocket. "First it's parking spaces, then it's they don't like the company or hours you keep, and next thing you know they're calling the police and swearing up and down that you're a drug dealer."

Dawn nervously glanced up at the apartment building next to her. "I…you don't honestly think it'll come to that, do you?"

"I've seen things like this escalate to actual physical violence," Roxy said as she fished something small and white out of her breast pocket. "I'm going to leave you a business card. If you sense that he's escalating beyond complaining about where you park, I want you to give us a call."

Dawn looked at the business card, but didn't take a step closer. This time they could see her expression by the light of the street lamp. She looked like she wasn't entirely buying Roxy's excuse. "I thought the police don't want to get involved in neighborhood disputes."

"We also like to head off violence before it happens," Roxy said as she scribbled something on the back the card. "If you can't get any traction when you call, tell the person at the other end of the line to come talk to me and I'll explain the situation."

"Unh, thanks but I really don't think that's—"

"Just the same, I'd feel better if you took my card," Roxy said. "Like I said, I've seen things like this turn ugly."

"O-o-okay."

Dawn stepped forward to take the proffered card. As soon as her fingers touched it, Roxy reached out with her free hand and closed it over Dawn's. There was the familiar bit of distortion as Roxy pulled Dawn's soul out of her body.

"Oh, she's good. She's bloody good," Mason whispered.

"A real pro," Daisy agreed.

"Shhhh," George ordered.

"Ummmm…" Dawn began.

"You have a good night, ma'am," Roxy said as she let go.

Dawn's expression was puzzled. "Yeah. Good night."

Roxy turned away, headed down the block, and out of sight from George's limited perspective of the street.

Dawn looked down at the business card. "I think she was hitting on me," they heard her mumble.

This caused some barely suppressed giggling on the part of George, Mason, and Daisy, even though it wasn't actually funny.

Dawn peered down the block, shrugged, turned away, and headed for the graveling-prepared steps.

"This is it," George whispered as Dawn reached the top of the steps.

"Oh, eeewwww," Dawn said as she looked down and waved a hand in front of her nose. "I don't want to know."

"Hey!" A male voice rang out. "What did I say about parking there?"

Dawn looked up. "Yeah? I just spoke to a cop about that and she said that my parking there was just fine!"

"We have assigned spaces on this street!" the male voice yelled.

"Wrong! I spoke to other people in the building and they said there was no such thing!" Dawn shouted up.

"Are you calling me a liar?"

"Tell you what," Dawn yelled up at her unseen neighbor, "the cop just walked down the block. I'm going to go get her and **she'll** tell you that you're full of crap!"

Dawn pivoted on her heel, which turned out to be a bad move when standing in a puddle of graveling urine. Her feet slipped and she fell headfirst down the cement steps. When she reached the bottom, she bounced.

George hopped to her feet. "You two, stay with dead girl. Make sure to get her out of the way and stay out of sight."

"Where the hell do you think you're going?" Mason demanded.

George didn't bother to answer. She took off at a run down the street in the same direction she saw Roxy walk.

"George! Georgia!" Daisy called after her.

George kept running until she reached the end of the block.

"Roxy! Roooooxxxxxyyyy!"

She looked up and down the street as well as the cross street.

"Roxy?"

The only thing she saw was darkness.

"Roxy?" George whispered as she fell to her knees.

There was no answer. No answer at all.

* * *

_Her name is Dawn Summers, and she just turned 24. She got her PhD in linguistics from the University of Oxford two years ago, which makes her some kind of prodigy I guess._

_She's not married. No kids. No pets. Not even any houseplants._

_Her mother died while she was still in middle school, and her father is pretty much incommunicado._

_She has an older sister named Buffy who's 28 years-old and lives Rome._

_Right there is pretty much where normal ends._

_That older sister is a Vampire Slayer, which is a new one on me. Don't get me wrong. I'm glad to know that someone out there is actually fighting all those supernatural things that kill people. It also sounds like a job that's suckier than mine, so I guess I feel kind of sorry for her too._

_Dawn doesn't have any hobbies, unless you count her job as a Watcher as her actual hobby. Which she actually might, now that I think about it._

_The point is that Dawn Summers is young, pretty, and has a whole life in front of her saving lives, doing good, and making the world a better place._

_Sorry. I meant she_ had _her whole life in front of her to do those things._

_And no. It's not fair._

_It's not fair at all._

* * *

"Why are we here?"

"I told you. To see your autopsy," George said. "It'll make you feel better."

Dawn threw up her hands. "How is **that** supposed to make me feel better?"

Mason smirked at George, a silent dare for her to explain what he thought was her fucked-up, Rube-inspired reasoning. What he didn't know was that "visiting the new grim reaper's autopsy" was in the step-by-step instructions that were helpfully enclosed with the information packet she got about Dawn.

_The fact that I got HR-style paperwork titled "Steps to Acclimating the New Hire" was proof that Daisy is right: being a grim reaper is like the world's longest temp job, except you can't quit. In a way, being a grim reaper is a lot like working for the Happy Time Temp Agency without a Delores as your boss, benefits package, or even minimum wage._

_If the living knew that, they'd point and laugh at us after they died._

"Weeelllll," George began as her brain worked feverishly. "It's like your life is this Crackerjack Box…"

Dawn put her head in her hands. "Please tell me you're not going to go all Forrest Gump on me."

"Will you just listen?" George was trying to be patient. She really was. Dawn was not making patience an easy thing to achieve. "Your life is like this Crackerjack Box. Your body is the box itself, right? And maybe the crunchy candy inside, too. But your soul is the surprise inside the box."

Dawn stared at her disbelievingly. Mason pressed his lips together and turned red with the effort of trying not to laugh.

"You know how you open the Crackerjack Box and you eat the candy-coated crap inside, even though it tastes like complete ass, just to get the surprise?" George helplessly asked as she dove forward with what was turning out to be a really bad way to explain this. "Well, once you get the surprise inside, there's really no point to having the box or even the rest of the food-ish contents. Because the surprise is the important part."

Dawn blinked owlishly at her. "Did you just compare my soul to a 2-cent Crackerjack Box surprise?"

"Hold on. Let me try this," Mason said with laugher in his voice.

"I think I got the concept," Dawn grumped.

"I don't think you do," Mason said. "It's more like you're this Happy Meal."

"Oh, God. You sound exactly like Spike." Dawn rolled her eyes.

"Spike?" Mason asked.

Dawn suddenly got defensive. "British guy I knew."

_More like British boyfriend. Makes you wonder just what her sex life was like if she had a British boyfriend with a bad-boy name like Spike._

_Wait. Did I just speculate about Dawn's sex life?_

_Clearly I need to get laid._

Mason beamed at Dawn. "Oh, yeah?"

"Mason," George snapped.

"Oh. Right. It's like you're this Happy Meal, right? Pretty packaging, delicious meat inside…" Mason began.

"Ew," Dawn and George said in unison.

"And fries! Don't forget the fries!" Mason course-corrected. "But the really important bit is—"

"The toy surprise?" Dawn asked with a raised eyebrow. "You might think that comparing my soul to a 10-cent plastic toy made in a Myanmar sweat shop is better than comparing it to a 2-cent Crackerjack Box surprise, but I have to tell you that it really isn't."

"Well, some of those can become real collectors' items that sell for lots of money on E-bay," Mason said.

"What the fuck do you know about E-bay?" George asked.

"I hear things," Mason answered.

The sound of a bone saw started.

Dawn turned to look through the glass. "I can't watch."

"And yet, that's exactly what you're doing," George mumbled to herself.

"Will you look at that?" Dawn asked as she waved through the glass. "He's cute. **Of course** he'd be cute. The first cute guy to touch my naked body in more than a year, and I'm dead."

_Yeah? Try being a virgin when the first cute guy to touch your naked body is when you're in pieces on a slab in the morgue._

George walked over to Dawn's side and joined her in staring through the window. "The point is that the body in there is not you. **This** standing next to me is you. What's in there isn't really important."

"Great. And what am I supposed to do with that?" Dawn asked. She seemed hypnotized by her own autopsy. "I'm dead. I'm standing in this room with two grim reapers. I can't touch anything. I can't interact with anyone. And I'm a ghost."

"At the moment," George said.

* * *

_I've never been the one to put the "fun" into funerals. Except for that one time with Trip, which was directly responsible for my first and last experience with sex. Let's just say that it didn't end well and leave it at that._

_My funeral was pretty much an uncomfortable affair. There were lots of people saying how wonderful, smart, friendly, beautiful, and all-around awesome I was, which was definitely a case of selective memory._

_The truth is I was an 18 year-old college drop-out stuck in a crappy temp job that required me to file useless bits of paper in the basement of an insurance company. A job I earned, I might add, by pissing off Delores. The only reason why I didn't get fired is because I got hit by a toilet seat that was hurtling to earth after being ejected from the Mir space station while on my lunch break during my first day on the job._

_I didn't get along with my parents. I didn't even acknowledge my little sister's existence. I had no friends. I had no hobbies. I was completely directionless. If I had lived, I probably wouldn't have been doing anything with my life anyway._

_Which makes Dawn's funeral completely different than mine. When all those people said that Dawn was wonderful, smart, friendly, beautiful, brave, and all-around awesome, they not only actually meant it, they probably didn't need to employ any selective memory._

_Yeah, Dawn's funeral wasn't any fun for me either._

* * *

"How are you doing?" George said as she sat down on the couch next to Dawn.

"A guy sat on me. Or maybe I mean sat through me. Then he was there for 5 minutes before he decided he wanted a beer," Dawn complained. "So I'd go with peachy with a side of keen. You?"

George took a bite of the canapé in her plate. "These are pretty good. Your sister hired some really great caterers."

"I wouldn't know," Dawn sourly remarked.

_I never understood why Rube was so food-obsessed at my funeral. Rube was food-obsessed in general, but at my funeral he really took it to extremes. He tasted everything, drank everything, and made commentaries about every bite and sip he took._

_It never occurred to me that maybe he focused on the food because he honestly had no idea how to make my trip from dead to undead any easier. Maybe focusing on the food was a way for him to deal with the dead 18 year-old sitting next to him._

Daisy was working the room and flirting with all of the handsome guys. The fact that they all looked pretty well-off in the financial department certainly added fuel to the fire. Not that any of the men were exactly opposed to Daisy paying attention to them.

"What is she doing?" Dawn asked as she glared at Daisy. "She's practically trying to merge with Dr. Giddings."

George watched as Daisy gave the man in question a lengthy full-body hug. "Daisy's a friendly person."

"There's friendly and there's being a ho," Dawn said.

"Really, really friendly," George said as Daisy's hug lengthened to way beyond what was proper.

"He's married!" Dawn protested.

"Daisy looks at it as 'borrowing'," George explained.

Dawn shot her a look. "Please tell me you're joking."

"Wish I was," George mumbled as she took another bite of her canapé.

"It would be nice if she'd enjoy my funeral a little less," Dawn grumbled as Daisy finally let go of the man and moved to another part of the room.

"It's the high-class rented hall and the first-class food," George said. "Those are the things that turn a good funeral into a great funeral."

_Please tell me I didn't just say that._

"Oh, God," Dawn said in a strangled voice.

"What?"

Dawn was staring at the far corner of the room. "My sister."

George followed Dawn's gaze and saw a young, blonde woman standing next to a young redhead. Her eyes were red, her pale face was blotchy, and she looked like she hadn't slept in a week. It was obvious that she had just finished a crying jag and only now had pulled it together enough to face the mourners.

The redhead next to the blonde kept a protective arm around the blonde woman's shoulders. She scanned the room as if she were looking for someone, but was disappointed to find that her target was nowhere in sight. The redhead looked like she had done as much crying and had as little sleep as the blonde.

If George was to guess, she'd say the blonde was Buffy. She had no idea who the redhead was, or how she was related to Dawn.

"What am I going to do?" Dawn asked.

"Nothing you can do," George said as she doubled her concentration on her plate.

"Look at her. She's barely holding it together." Dawn sounded like she was on the verge of tears.

A crash caused everyone in the room to jump.

"You don' get it. You don'!" A young girl with light brown hair stumbled into the room. "I shouldda gone home with her. Made sure she got home a'right."

"Marguerite," Dawn groaned.

"Who?" George asked.

"My Slayer."

"Ah."

Marguerite began to flail. "'S not fair. 'S not! Assholes live all the time. All. The. Time. They do…they do…asshole things an' they live jus' fine. **Jus'** fine."

Buffy moved forward. "Marguerite…"

"**You** stay back," Marguerite ordered as she fought to keep her balance. "Where were you? Where the **fuck** were you? Hunh?"

Buffy's mouth disappeared into a thin line.

"Fuckin' 'round Rome. Thass what I heard," Marguerite accused as she fought to keep her balance.

"Damn it. I told Buffy to do something about those rumors," Dawn said.

Buffy went white with fury. "I don't know what you heard, but I **know** you didn't hear it from Dawn."

Marguerite spit on the floor at Buffy's feet.

Buffy's hands turned into fists and her voice got low and dangerous. "I'm going to let this slide, because Dawn was your Watcher and you're upset."

Marguerite flipped Buffy the bird. "Fuck. You."

"No love lost there," George remarked.

Dawn hopped to her feet. "Marguerite got along fine with Buffy."

"I'm guessing not so much anymore," George said.

Marguerite flailed her arms around the room. "Fuck all of you! She's dead and **you're still here**."

The Slayer then turned, probably to leave the room, tripped over her own feet, and face-planted on the hardwood floor.

"Marguerite!" Dawn cried as she rushed forward. She kneeled down next to the now-unconscious girl and tried to touch her, only to have her hand pass right through the Slayer's shoulder.

As Dawn stared dumbly at her hand, several people finally broke paralysis and rushed to the fallen girl's side. A few people passed right through the insensible Dawn.

Buffy and the redhead pushed their way through the crowd to check the girl for themselves.

"Whoof." The redhead winced as she waved a hand in front of her nose. "How long has she been drinking? Since last night?"

"Someone get her back to her place," Buffy ordered. "Let her sleep it off."

There was a distinct hesitation in the crowd.

"Now!" Buffy yelled.

Several of the men immediately hopped to it. As they lifted the girl off the floor, Buffy added, "And someone stay with her until she regains consciousness."

A brunette girl stepped forward. "I'll do it. If she wakes up while we're on the way back to her place—"

Buffy took a deep, shuddering breath. "Thank you. Sylvia, is it?"

The girl nodded.

"Tell her when she wakes up that I'll be by to see her later, okay?" Buffy asked.

"Will do," the girl said as she turned to follow Marguerite and the men bearing her unconscious body out the door.

Through the whole thing, Dawn remained kneeling on the floor. She hadn't budged and inch.

As the crowd dispersed, George unobtrusively picked her way over to where Dawn was kneeling. "You know what? I think that maybe—"

"Maybe what?" Dawn snapped back to life. "What could you **possibly** say to me right now? Sorry for your loss? Too bad your Slayer crawled back into the bottle?"

"That actually wasn't what I—"

"You know what? Marguerite was right. Fuck. You. Fuck all of you." Dawn hopped to her feet and rushed off into the crowd, passing through anyone who got in her way.

"Oh, fuck," George said under her breath as she tried to follow. The fact that she couldn't just walk through anyone who got in her way slowed her down considerably.

"Hey! Watch it!" Daisy shouted as George dodged one of the mourners, only to bump into Daisy's back.

"Sorry. Excuse us," George quickly said to Daisy's latest male mark as she yanked the other reaper aside.

"Georgia, now really. You're making a scene," Daisy scolded her.

"And I've lost Dawn in the crowd," George hissed through her teeth.

"I'm hardly surprised. That drunk girl put on quite a show. She must've been dying of embarrassment," Daisy replied. "I remember how Louis B. Meyer threw himself on my coffin at my funeral. I simply had to leave the room."

"Daisy! Pay attention!" Geroge ordered in an angry whisper. "Right now we've got to find Dawn and get her the hell out of here."

"All right, all right," Daisy said with a sigh as she put her empty glass on a try held by a passing waiter. "Which way did she go?"

"From here? No idea," Geroge said. "You go left, I'll go right. Whoever finds her first gets her out the front door right away. Once she's out of here, that person uses their cell to call the other."

"It's a plan," Daisy agreed. To her credit, she straightened her shoulders and marched off, easily sliding around the various clumps of mourners in her search.

George spun around and head off in the opposite direction. Lacking Daisy's natural grace, she spent a lot of time apologizing to people for bumping into them or stepping on their toes. Somehow through the general hubbub of mourners quietly conversing with one another, she managed to hear, "I want you to try again, Giles."

George's head snapped around to face the direction from where the voice came. That sounded an awful lot like Buffy's voice. Good bet that Dawn was probably in the area.

"As I've explained, he's simply out of reach," said a deep, male, and very British voice. Not Mason-British. More like PBS-British.

George managed to find Buffy standing in a corner with the redhead and a 40- or 50-something guy with glasses.

_Okay, Dawn. Where the hell are you?_

"Don't tell me that. Don't **tell** me that," Buffy said furiously. "We have the best witches and seers in the world, and you're telling me we can't find him?"

"Buffy, we explained this," the redhead timorously interrupted. "He's deep in Namibia right now, and because of the situation he's under a no-tracking silence spell. Nothing's going to find him until he breaks it."

George desperately searched the crowd in the area around the consulting trio. She moved as unobtrusively and as cautiously as she could around and through the knots of mourners, who seemed to be leaving a polite distance between Buffy and her two friends. The last thing she needed was to trip and stumble into that small open space.

"Are you **sure** he didn't get the message at all?" Buffy desperately asked.

"I spoke to his second, Joseph," the British gentleman answered. "The message was found in his quarters, but it appears that it was never read."

"How could he miss a **mystically directed** message?" Buffy demanded.

"C'mon, Dawn," George muttered as she craned her neck to look between two tall, well-dressed women with their heads bent close together.

"Buffy, as long as he was on the compound when it arrived, it would've just gone straight to his quarters," the redhead explained. "If he was in the middle of rallying the troops and preparing to move out when it blipped into existence, he would've never seen it."

"And you must recall his reports. He did have to leave on rather short notice," the British gentleman said.

Buffy crossed her arms, leaned against the wall, and put her head down, a movement that caught George's eye.

_If Dawn doesn't pop up and go running to her sister's side, that means she didn't see it, and that means that I better go looking somewhere else._

"Buffy, I'm sorry," the redhead said as she placed a comforting hand on Buffy's arm. "I'm afraid he's not going to get the bad news until he gets back."

_No Dawn. That means she's not here._

As George turned away to find better prospects for Dawn-spotting elsewhere in the hall, a hand closed around her upper arm.

"I'm a friend of the family's," George automatically said as she tensed.

"Georgia, it's me. I found Dawn," Daisy whispered in her ear.

"Why didn't you just take her out the front door?" George said.

"She won't go," Daisy urgently said as she began dragging George behind her.

"Where is she?" George asked.

"Near the back door, at least," Daisy said. "We'll only have to convince her to move a little instead of across this whole space."

"How bad is she?"

Daisy paused long enough to look back over her shoulder at George. She looked worried, a definite bad sign.

"Yeah, that's what I thought," George said as she let Daisy drag her forward.

By the time they reached Dawn, she had scrunched herself into a ball in a corner and was staring at the milling mourners. George would've bet good money that Dawn didn't see any of them.

"Dawn," George softly called as she cautiously approached. "Dawn?"

No answer. No sign that Dawn even heard her.

George looked helplessly at Daisy, who shook her head and shrugged in response.

George tried again. "I think maybe it's time we leave."

Dawn jerked her head to face George. "Coming here was a stupid idea."

"We…unh…what I mean is…it was necessary. You had to see this. To, y'know, say good-bye to your old life before moving on to your new one," George said.

"Still a stupid idea," Dawn murmured.

"C'mon. Why don't you get up and we'll sneak out by this door right here," George said.

Dawn slowly got to her feet and walked out the indicated door, leaving George and Daisy to follow or not.

_You ever notice how at times like this we want to ask someone if they're okay, when it's pretty obvious that they're_ not _okay? I always thought it was a pretty stupid impulse. I mean, you've got eyes, right? When you're looking at someone who died in a stupid accident and have just attended their funeral, they're not exactly going to be in the mood to go out for margaritas and dancing on tables._

_Yet as we stepped into the sunlight, I felt that awful urge to ask Dawn if she was okay. If I had done that, it pretty much would've cemented the idea in her head that I was a heartless asshole. Of course she wasn't okay. She wasn't going to be okay for awhile,_ especially _after she realized what her next step really was._

Dawn stopped on the sun-drenched lawn and contemplated the landscaping. "Buffy picked a nice place," she suddenly said. "For after the funeral, I mean."

"Yeah," George quietly agreed as she cautiously moved to stand next to Dawn.

"Your sister has exquisite tastes," Daisy said as she moved to stand on Dawn's other side. "All you needed was a little star power and you would've had the perfect Hollywood funeral."

Dawn half-snorted and half-sobbed. "In my world, those people in there have star power."

"If you say so," Daisy said as she uncomfortably began scanning the grounds.

"C'mon. I think leaving means that we should probably leave the property, too," George encouraged.

Dawn sighed. "He didn't come."

"Hunh?" George asked.

"He didn't come," Dawn repeated.

Daisy looked at George over Dawn's head and shrugged.

A metaphorical light bulb went off over George's head. "Oh! You mean your dad! Your dad didn't come."

Dawn gave her a what-the-hell look.

"If it makes you feel any better, I overheard your sister talking to a British guy and that redheaded friend of hers," George quickly said. "They're trying to reach him, but he's in some country. I forget which one. I think it started with an N. Or maybe an M. Anyway they sent the message, but I guess it didn't get there in time and he completely missed it."

Dawn rolled her eyes. "If Buffy's trying to reach Dad, she's totally wasting her time. He wrote us off years ago."

"Oh. Unh. Sorry," George apologized.

"Honey, if 'he' isn't your father, then who is he?" Daisy asked.

George looked over Dawn's head and made a cutting motion across her throat.

Dawn's faced screwed up, either because she was angry or was trying to stop herself from crying. George couldn't tell either way.

"No one," Dawn bitterly said. "No one important at all."


End file.
